Activating Vacant Spaces

Living Lots NYC is a clearinghouse of information that New Yorkers can use to find, unlock and protect our shared resources. 596 Acres started with vacant lots and remains committed to helping fill these holes.

Reviewing Accountability

Urban Reviewer catalogs over 150 urban renewal plans that NYC adopted to get federal funding for acquiring land, relocating the people living there, demolishing the structures and making way for new public and private development.

Gaining Access to Public Buildings

NYCommons helps New Yorkers impact decisions about public land and buildings in their neighborhoods. It is a collaboration between Common Cause/NY, the Community Development Project at the Urban Justice Center, and 596 Acres.

360 active community properties are not in jeopardy

In February, the NYC Department of Finance published a list in response to our advocacy of charity properties with recent tax-exemptions with tax, sewer and water debt heading to the 2017 Tax Lien Sale. There were 536 nonprofit-owned places on that list. We are down to 176.

176 nonprofit-owned places are still poised to have their illegally-accrued debt sold to a private investment trust this August. The trust can charge 18% interest, compounded daily, pursue collection, and initiate foreclosure leading to sale at auction to the highest bidder. Buyers can do as they please to the structures, including demolish old churches, mosques, synagogues and community centers. See below for how you can help protect the 176 community properties still at risk.

The Department of Finance extended the deadline for nonprofits to get off the list to Friday, June 23

Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams: “Simply put, houses of worship and non-profits should not be caught in the same tax lien sale net as other properties. At a time when underserved communities find themselves relying on charitable organizations more and more, with those organizations stretched thinner and thinner, we should making a greater effort to help the helpers.”

Public Advocate Letitia James: “Our charitable institutions and houses of worship are exempt from property taxes and should not be put at risk of foreclosure at the hands of a private bank because of paperwork errors and administrative inefficiencies…”

ADD YOUR VOICE

ENCOURAGE OUR ELECTED ADVOCATES

If your Council Member signed the letter (this is listed above), call and thank them! If they didn’t, call and ask them to send a similar letter (they can use this text). Remind them that the Department of Finance sent them an email on June 1 announcing this deadline extension, and urge them to help the nonprofits in their districts still on the list get out! Call your Borough President and the Public Advocate to thank them for their leadership or ask them to step up! Ask everyone you talk to to demand a moratorium on including debt on nonprofit-owned properties and vacant lots in the 2017 tax lien sale, if they haven’t already. Look up who represents you and everyone’s contact information here.